July has been a bit of an odd month for us really. For a start it has been Sunny…& warm…too. This is a rare phenomenon here in Carlisle, especially as it has gone on for quite a prolonged time too. I am not complaining mind you, as it has been lovely to be able to sit in the garden at long last. I have had to retreat into the shade several times as the Sun was too hot for me to sit in full glow. I burn, so I have to be careful. The good weather has its downsides though and I have spent several evenings lugging the watering can around the pots to make sure the plants didn’t expire of thirst….another rare event here in Cumbria, where we are not usually short of rain!
All this good weather has also meant that we have been Swimming quite a bit too. Ever since we lived in France and had the luxury of a lovely lake and plan d’eau near our house, we have been fans of outdoor swimming. There are plenty of opportunities for swimming outdoors near here…in fact the Lake District is only 30 minutes drive from here, but swimming in those lakes is not always an attractive prospect as the areas are very crowded in summer, the lake terrain is often very rocky underfoot and the popular lakes are often hit by nasty algae blooms which are not good for your health. Happily , as I have mentioned previously in this blog, we have several outdoor swimming pools near here and so we have been taking advantage of those. I have even treated myself to a new Swimsuit!! Before the schools broke up for the summer holidays we discovered one of the pools (Hunsonby) was really quiet in the mornings and so we have swum there several times, putting our fees into the honesty box as it is usually unmanned. We have had the pool more or less to ourselves which has been great. We have also swum at Greystoke pool with Hazel and the girls too, but that pool is always a bit busier. It has been lovely to swim in the fresh air again…I will find it very hard to go back to indoor pools again when the summer season finishes. On one of these trips we eventually managed to visit a local place Geoff has been trying to get to for ages. He loves to visit Stone circles and Standing stones and usually I just let him get on with it as they are normally quite a trek to get to. However Long Meg and her Daughters proved to be a good one to visit as you can drive right to it. It was also very impressive….and believe me for me to say that is very unusual! It is well worth a visit if you are in the area.
We have often combined these swimming sessions with lunch afterwards as usual. We have become semi regulars at The Shepherds Inn at Langwathby and the Sun Inn at Newton Reigny, both of which are close by the pools. We have wanted to explore more eating places but unfortunately a lot of the pretty village pubs seem not to open at lunchtimes now, which is a shame. A couple of times we have met up with our friends Linda and Mike for lunch…but I have not been able to persuade them to join us on our swims!
We have also had a lovely little break in Scotland this month. We drove up to Dunblane one Wednesday, detouring a bit to visit another place Geoff had on his “must see” list, a rewilding project {Carrifran Wild Wood) near Moffat. He enjoyed his walk into the dense wood…I did not as I got badly bitten by flying critters as usual :
: We were warmly welcomed when we arrived in Dunblane, by our friends Ewen and Jean, and they made us very welcome in their beautiful home once again. They are wonderful hosts and they took us out the next day for a super tour of the Kingdom of Fife, visiting St Andrews, Crail, Anstruther and lots of other places before crossing the Forth Road bridge and returning back to Dunblane. It was lovely to be chauffeured and have all the history of the places explained by Ewen as we drove through them. We thoroughly enjoyed it all. And as I know Ewen will be reading this …thank you again :
: We drove down into the Borders for our final day away. As we passed Lanark on the way across, Geoff suddenly saw a sign to New Lanark and so off we went to have a look at this heritage site which he had read about somewhere! It was a good visit as it turned out! It is an old textilemill and the surrounding mill workers cottages, school, shop sand other buildings which were created to make the mill workers life and conditions better. It was very interesting and we we were glad we had taken the detour.We stayed in Kelso for the night at The Queen’s Head hotel. I love the countryside of the Borders so it was a nice conclusion to our little break.
Sport has also featured heavily during this month….on TV that is! We have been bombarded with it really! Wimbledon , of course, was great…although I have to admit I don’t enjoy much women`s tennis these days as I am totally at sea with who the stars are any more. The Men’s tennis was good but once again I get disappointed by these hard hitting, ace after ace matches. I missed the finesse of Roger, Rafa & Carlos very much. And then there was that football tournament in the USA. I really can’t believe my family actually ended up supporting Spain (which is unheard of here) in that final. Nuff said about that! Then we had the Tour de France, which much to Geoff’s disappointment, had been relegated to a one hour highlight slot on terrestial TV, and has lost a lot of its excitement for him as Pogachar has dominated it from the word go. And now, we have the Commonwealth games taking place, only a short train ride from here, but practically non existant on TV unfortunately, since the BBC lost the franchise. That is a real shame as we really like to watch athletics. However we have now discovered we can watch the games on the Alba channel. It is a Scottish channel and there is good coverage there. The only downside is that the commentary is all in Gaelic…which makes interesting viewing I can tell you! We don’t understand a word of it!
We have continued to do all our usual stuff…church activities, Pickleball for Geoff, charity shop shifts for me all month. We have had a few little walks locally too as Geoff has missed his usual walking companion, Xena, who has been away on holiday! I have also had my annual diabetic review and was advised to start taking a new medication to try & get my blood sugars down again. However this hasn’t really agreed with me and so after discussing the situation with the nurse I have decided to stop taking these new pills and will try and sort things out by myself yet again.
I cannot end this post without writing about these terrible fires in Spain and more relevantly for us, in France. We have been watching all the news footage with horror, as we know some of these areas well. We drive through many of those terrains in the Var when we visit St Aygulf and have often said that fire would be dreadful amongst all the trees which cling to the hillsides there. And now we see that very event happening ….the destruction is horrific. So far St Aygulf on the coast has not been involved and we are thankful for that. We have also often watched the Canadair planes practising scooping water and releasing it from the beach in St Aygulf and now seeing them doing this for real on the Lac St Croix, which we drive past often, is a sobering sight. We have good friends (Marc and Michelle) who retired to live in Le Porge…one of the places evacuated this week as the fires in the Gironde get closer and closer to Bordeaux. Fortunately, they are in Brittany just now visiting Michelle’s mother, who is ill, but it is a very anxious time for them as they have not as yet been allowed back to see the damage. So far, their neighbours and friends have reported that their house is OK, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for them. We still think they have not yet been allowed to return to their house and we are still awaiting the next update at the time of writing this. It must be terrible to be in that region just now. Again it is an area we know quite well and we often camped in those woods with our kids. It must have been terrifying to be told to evacuate in the middle of the night. Geoff and I were talking yesterday about what on earth you would grab (family, pets etc aside) in that situation. Doesn’t bear thinking about does it?
And so July is at an end and on into August we go. We have several things on the calendar already for August …including a weekend away with our grandchildren in Sunny (I hope) Silloth yet again. We have some final preparations to sort out for our now, fast approaching trip back to our second home in St Aygulf….where I am hoping the canicule will have ended by the time we get there. We are also just about to buy a new computer in the next few days and so we are hoping all goes smoothly with the changeover and I do not lose all my hard work on this blog! We will see my friends, we will see! For now though
31/07/2026….All the S’s this month
July has been a bit of an odd month for us really. For a start it has been Sunny…& warm…too. This is a rare phenomenon here in Carlisle, especially as it has gone on for quite a prolonged time too. I am not complaining mind you, as it has been lovely to be able to sit in the garden at long last. I have had to retreat into the shade several times as the Sun was too hot for me to sit in full glow. I burn, so I have to be careful. The good weather has its downsides though and I have spent several evenings lugging the watering can around the pots to make sure the plants didn’t expire of thirst….another rare event here in Cumbria, where we are not usually short of rain!
All this good weather has also meant that we have been Swimming quite a bit too. Ever since we lived in France and had the luxury of a lovely lake and plan d’eau near our house, we have been fans of outdoor swimming. There are plenty of opportunities for swimming outdoors near here…in fact the Lake District is only 30 minutes drive from here, but swimming in those lakes is not always an attractive prospect as the areas are very crowded in summer, the lake terrain is often very rocky underfoot and the popular lakes are often hit by nasty algae blooms which are not good for your health. Happily , as I have mentioned previously in this blog, we have several outdoor swimming pools near here and so we have been taking advantage of those. I have even treated myself to a new Swimsuit!! Before the schools broke up for the summer holidays we discovered one of the pools (Hunsonby) was really quiet in the mornings and so we have swum there several times, putting our fees into the honesty box as it is usually unmanned. We have had the pool more or less to ourselves which has been great. We have also swum at Greystoke pool with Hazel and the girls too, but that pool is always a bit busier. It has been lovely to swim in the fresh air again…I will find it very hard to go back to indoor pools again when the summer season finishes. On one of these trips we eventually managed to visit a local place Geoff has been trying to get to for ages. He loves to visit Stone circles and Standing stones and usually I just let him get on with it as they are normally quite a trek to get to. However Long Meg and her Daughters proved to be a good one to visit as you can drive right to it. It was also very impressive….and believe me for me to say that is very unusual! It is well worth a visit if you are in the area.
We have often combined these swimming sessions with lunch afterwards as usual. We have become semi regulars at The Shepherds Inn at Langwathby and the Sun Inn at Newton Reigny, both of which are close by the pools. We have wanted to explore more eating places but unfortunately a lot of the pretty village pubs seem not to open at lunchtimes now, which is a shame. A couple of times we have met up with our friends Linda and Mike for lunch…but I have not been able to persuade them to join us on our swims!
We have also had a lovely little break in Scotland this month. We drove up to Dunblane one Wednesday, detouring a bit to visit another place Geoff had on his “must see” list, a rewilding project {Carrifran Wild Wood) near Moffat. He enjoyed his walk into the dense wood…I did not as I got badly bitten by flying critters as usual 
We were warmly welcomed when we arrived in Dunblane, by our friends Ewen and Jean, and they made us very welcome in their beautiful home once again. They are wonderful hosts and they took us out the next day for a super tour of the Kingdom of Fife, visiting St Andrews, Crail, Anstruther and lots of other places before crossing the Forth Road bridge and returning back to Dunblane. It was lovely to be chauffeured and have all the history of the places explained by Ewen as we drove through them. We thoroughly enjoyed it all. And as I know Ewen will be reading this …thank you again 
We drove down into the Borders for our final day away. As we passed Lanark on the way across, Geoff suddenly saw a sign to New Lanark and so off we went to have a look at this heritage site which he had read about somewhere! It was a good visit as it turned out! It is an old textile mill and the surrounding mill workers cottages, school, shop sand other buildings which were created to make the mill workers life and conditions better. It was very interesting and we we were glad we had taken the detour. We stayed in Kelso for the night at The Queen’s Head hotel. I love the countryside of the Borders so it was a nice conclusion to our little break.
Sport has also featured heavily during this month….on TV that is! We have been bombarded with it really! Wimbledon , of course, was great…although I have to admit I don’t enjoy much women`s tennis these days as I am totally at sea with who the stars are any more. The Men’s tennis was good but once again I get disappointed by these hard hitting, ace after ace matches. I missed the finesse of Roger, Rafa & Carlos very much. And then there was that football tournament in the USA. I really can’t believe my family actually ended up supporting Spain (which is unheard of here) in that final. Nuff said about that! Then we had the Tour de France, which much to Geoff’s disappointment, had been relegated to a one hour highlight slot on terrestial TV, and has lost a lot of its excitement for him as Pogachar has dominated it from the word go. And now, we have the Commonwealth games taking place, only a short train ride from here, but practically non existant on TV unfortunately, since the BBC lost the franchise. That is a real shame as we really like to watch athletics. However we have now discovered we can watch the games on the Alba channel. It is a Scottish channel and there is good coverage there. The only downside is that the commentary is all in Gaelic…which makes interesting viewing I can tell you! We don’t understand a word of it!
We have continued to do all our usual stuff…church activities, Pickleball for Geoff, charity shop shifts for me all month. We have had a few little walks locally too as Geoff has missed his usual walking companion, Xena, who has been away on holiday! I have also had my annual diabetic review and was advised to start taking a new medication to try & get my blood sugars down again. However this hasn’t really agreed with me and so after discussing the situation with the nurse I have decided to stop taking these new pills and will try and sort things out by myself yet again.
I cannot end this post without writing about these terrible fires in Spain and more relevantly for us, in France. We have been watching all the news footage with horror, as we know some of these areas well. We drive through many of those terrains in the Var when we visit St Aygulf and have often said that fire would be dreadful amongst all the trees which cling to the hillsides there. And now we see that very event happening ….the destruction is horrific. So far St Aygulf on the coast has not been involved and we are thankful for that. We have also often watched the Canadair planes practising scooping water and releasing it from the beach in St Aygulf and now seeing them doing this for real on the Lac St Croix, which we drive past often, is a sobering sight. We have good friends (Marc and Michelle) who retired to live in Le Porge…one of the places evacuated this week as the fires in the Gironde get closer and closer to Bordeaux. Fortunately, they are in Brittany just now visiting Michelle’s mother, who is ill, but it is a very anxious time for them as they have not as yet been allowed back to see the damage. So far, their neighbours and friends have reported that their house is OK, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for them. We still think they have not yet been allowed to return to their house and we are still awaiting the next update at the time of writing this. It must be terrible to be in that region just now. Again it is an area we know quite well and we often camped in those woods with our kids. It must have been terrifying to be told to evacuate in the middle of the night. Geoff and I were talking yesterday about what on earth you would grab (family, pets etc aside) in that situation. Doesn’t bear thinking about does it?
And so July is at an end and on into August we go. We have several things on the calendar already for August …including a weekend away with our grandchildren in Sunny (I hope) Silloth yet again. We have some final preparations to sort out for our now, fast approaching trip back to our second home in St Aygulf….where I am hoping the canicule will have ended by the time we get there. We are also just about to buy a new computer in the next few days and so we are hoping all goes smoothly with the changeover and I do not lose all my hard work on this blog! We will see my friends, we will see! For now though
A bientot mes amis…